Faculty

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Adele Anthony

Since her triumph at Denmark’s 1996 Carl Nielsen International Violin Competition, Adele Anthony has enjoyed an acclaimed and expanding international career. Performing as a soloist with orchestra and in recital, as well as being active in chamber music, Ms. Anthony’s career spans the continents of North America, Europe, Australia, India and Asia.

In addition to appearances with all six symphonies of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Ms. Anthony’s highlights from recent seasons have included performances with the symphony orchestras of Houston, San Diego, Seattle, Ft. Worth, and Indianapolis, as well as the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. Being an avid chamber music player, Ms. Anthony appears regularly at La Jolla SummerFest and Aspen Music Festival. Her wide-ranging repertoire extends from the Baroque of Bach and Vivaldi to contemporary works of Ross Edwards, Arvo Pärt and Phillip Glass.

An active recording artist, Ms. Anthony’s work iincludes releases with Sejong Soloists, Eric Ewazen, Concerto for Violin and String Orchestra (Albany), a recording of the Philip Glass Violin Concerto with Takuo Yuasa and the Ulster Orchestra (Naxos), Arvo Pärt’s ‘Tabula rasa’ with Gil Shaham, Neeme Järvi and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra (Deutsche Grammophon), and her latest recording of the Sibelius Violin Concerto and Ross Edwards “Maninyas” with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra (Canary Classics/ABC Classics).

Adele Anthony performs on an Antonio Stradivarius violin, crafted in 1728.

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Augustin Hadelich

Augustin Hadelich is one of the great violinists of our time. From Bach to Paganini, from Brahms to Bartók to Adès, he has mastered a wide-ranging and adventurous repertoire. He is often referred to by colleagues as a musician's musician. Named Musical America’s 2018 "Instrumentalist of the Year", he is consistently cited worldwide for his phenomenal technique, soulful approach, and insightful interpretations.

Highlights of Augustin Hadelich’s 2020/21 season include appearances with the Atlanta, Baltimore, Colorado, Dallas, Milwaukee, North Carolina and Seattle symphony orchestras, as well as the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, WDR radio orchestra Cologne, Philharmonia Zürich, Dresden Philharmonic, ORF Vienna Radio Symphony, Danish National Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, BBC Scottish Orchestra, and Elbphilharmonie Orchestra Hamburg, where he was named Associate Artist starting with the 2019/20 season.

Augustin Hadelich has appeared with every major orchestra in North America, including the Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony. His worldwide presence has been rapidly rising, with recent appearances with the Bavarian Radio Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, London Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Orquesta Nacional de España, Oslo Philharmonic, São Paulo Symphony, the radio orchestras of Frankfurt, Saarbrücken, Stuttgart, and Cologne, and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. Engagements in the Far East include the Hong Kong Philharmonic, Seoul Philharmonic, Singapore Symphony, NHK Symphony (Tokyo), and a tour with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

Augustin Hadelich has collaborated with such renowned conductors as Thomas Adès, Marin Alsop, Stefan Asbury, Herbert Blomstedt, Thomas Dausgaard, Stéphane Denève, Christoph von Dohnányi,  Thierry  Fischer,  Alan  Gilbert, Gustavo Gimeno,  Hans  Graf, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Manfred Honeck, Jakub Hruša, Carlos Kalmar, Louis Langrée, Hannu Lintu, Cristian Macelaru, Klaus Mäkelä, Jun Märkl, Juanjo Mena, Ludovic Morlot, Andris Nelsons, Sakari Oramo, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Peter Oundjian, Vasily Petrenko, Carlos Miguel Prieto, David Robertson, Donald Runnicles, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Lahav Shani, John Storgårds, Leonard Slatkin, Yan Pascal Tortelier, Krzysztof Urbański, Osmo Vänskä, Edo de Waart, and Jaap van Zweden, among others.

Augustin Hadelich is the winner of a 2016 Grammy Award – “Best Classical Instrumental Solo” – for his recording of Dutilleux’s Violin Concerto, L’Arbre des songes, with the Seattle Symphony under Ludovic Morlot (Seattle Symphony MEDIA). A Warner Classics Artist, his first release was a recording of Paganini’s 24 Caprices in January 2018. One of Germany’s most prestigious newspapers, the Süddeutsche Zeitung, wrote about this recording: “Anyone who masters these pieces so confidently has, so to speak, reached the regions of eternal snow: he has reached the top.” His second recording for Warner Classics, the Brahms and Ligeti violin concertos with the Norwegian Radio Orchestra under Miguel Harth-Bedoya, followed in April 2019. A new recording Bohemian Tales, including the Dvořák Violin Concerto with the Bavarian Radio Orchestra conducted by Jakub Hrůša, has just been released in July 2020 to high acclaim. Other recent discs include live recordings of the violin concertos of Tchaikovsky and Lalo (Symphonie espagnole) with the London Philharmonic Orchestra on the LPO label (2017), and a series of releases on the AVIE label including a CD of the violin concertos by Jean Sibelius and Thomas Adès (Concentric Paths), with Hannu Lintu conducting the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (2014). This disc was nominated for a Gramophone Award and listed by NPR as one of their Top 10 Classical CDs of the year.  

Born in Italy, the son of German parents, Augustin Hadelich is now an American citizen. He holds an Artist Diploma from The Juilliard School, where he was a student of Joel Smirnoff. After winning the Gold Medal at the 2006 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, concerto and recital appearances on many of the world’s top stages quickly followed. Among his other distinctions are an Avery Fisher Career Grant (2009); a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship in the UK (2011); the inaugural Warner Music Prize (2015); a Grammy Award (2016); as well as an honorary doctorate from the University of Exeter in the UK (2017).

Augustin Hadelich plays the violin "Leduc, ex-Szeryng" by Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù of 1744, generously loaned by a patron through the Tarisio Trust.

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Grigory Kalinovsky

Grigory Kalinovsky is professor of music in violin at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where he was appointed to faculty in fall 2013. He also teaches at the IU Summer String Academy and continues to teach at the Heifetz International Music Institute.
Hailed by critics as a “superior poet” (Vancouver Sun) and praised for his “heart and indomitable will” (Gramophone), Kalinovsky has performed at some of the world’s major venues, from all three stages of Carnegie Hall in New York to Musikhalle Grosser Saal in Hamburg.

As a recitalist and avid chamber musician, he has appeared at numerous concert series and festivals, including the Asheville Chamber Music Series, Lyric Chamber Music Society of New York, Lucas Foss’s Festival at the Hamptons, Newport Music Festival, and Pavel Vernikov's festival, “Il Violino Magico” in Italy. He has collaborated with such renowned musicians as Pinchas Zukerman, Shmuel Ashkeniasi, Ralph Kirshbaum, Miriam Fried, James Buswell, Dora Schwarzberg, and Paul Coletti, among others.

A devoted educator, Kalinovsky was previously a faculty member at the Manhattan School of Music and has taught at many summer music festivals, including Pinchas Zukerman’s Young Artists Program in Canada, Keshet Eilon Mastercourse in Israel, Bowdoin International Music Festival in Maine, Soesterberg International Music Festival in Holland, Summit Music Festival in New York, “Il Violino Magico” in Italy, and Manhattan in the Mountains, where he was also one of the founding artistic directors.

His book ViolinMind, on theory and technique of playing using different tuning systems, written in collaboration with famed cello professor Hans Jørgen Jensen, was published by OvationPress in 2019.

Kalinovsky has presented master classes at many major U.S. festivals and music schools, including New England Conservatory, Colburn School, Meadowmount, University of Maryland, San Francisco Conservatory, and Seattle Conservatory. He has also presented at numerous European and Asian institutions, such as the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Buchmann-Mehta School of Music and Jerusalem Music Center in Israel, Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler” in Germany, Beijing Central Conservatory in China, and Seoul National University and Korea National University of Arts in Seoul.
Kalinovsky’s students have won top prizes at national and international competitions, including the Tibor Varga Youth Competition, Menuhin Young Artists Competition in England, Andrea Postacchini Young Violinists Competition in Italy, and Fischoff International Chamber Music Competition in Chicago. They have gone on to study at institutions such as Curtis, Colburn, Juilliard, Yale, New England Conservatory, Manhattan School of Music, and Indiana University, among others.

His recording with pianist Tatiana Goncharova featuring Shostakovich’s Violin Sonata and Twenty-Four Preludes transcribed for Violin and Piano by Dmitri Tziganov—with several of the transcriptions commissioned by Kalinovsky from the celebrated composer Lera Auerbach—was released by Centaur Records to great critical acclaim and hailed by the composer's son, conductor Maxim Shostakovich, as “a must-have for any Shostakovich music connoisseur.” The duo’s recording of the complete set of sonatas for violin and piano by Mieczysław Weinberg was released on the Naxos label in 2017.

Kalinovsky started his music education with Tatiana Liberova in his native St. Petersburg, Russia. After coming to New York, he continued his studies with Pinchas Zukerman and Patinka Kopec at the Manhattan School of Music, where he served as a faculty member shortly after graduating and until his move to Indiana University.

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Weigang Li

Born into a family of well-known musicians in Shanghai, Weigang Li  began studying the violin with his parents when he was 5 and went on to attend the Shanghai Conservatory Middle School at age 14. Three years later, in 1981, he was selected to go to study for one year at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music through the first cultural exchange program between the sister cities of Shanghai and San Francisco. in 1985, upon graduating from the Shanghai Conservatory, Weigang Li left China to continue his studies at Northern Illinois University and later studied and taught at the Juilliard School. Besides his parents, other important teachers have included Shmuel Ashkenasi, Robert Mann, Tan Shu-Chen and Isadore Tinkleman. 

Mr. Li was featured in the 1980 Oscar winning documentary film From Mao to Mozart: IsaacStern in China. He made his solo debut at 17 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and has appeared as soloist with Shanghai Symphony, China Philharmonic, BBC Scottish Symphony and Asian Youth Orchestra. 

Weigang Li is a founding member and first violinist of the world-renowned Shanghai Quartet since 1983. Now in its 37th season, the Shanghai Quartet has performed nearly 3000 concerts in 35 countries and recorded over 30 CD albums, including a highly acclaimed 7-disc set of complete Beethoven String Quartets. 

Weigang Li is a violin professor at Bard College Conservatory of Music, Tianjin Juilliard School, and Montclair State University. He also holds the title of guest concert-master of Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, guest professor at both Shanghai Conservatory of Music and Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. 

Mr. Li plays on a Antonio Stradivari golden period violin the 'Kneisel, Grün' made in Cremona in 1714, which is on a generous loan from J. A. Beare International Violin Society.

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Gil Shaham

Gil Shaham is one of the foremost violinists of our time; his flawless technique combined with his inimitable warmth and generosity of spirit has solidified his renown as an American master. The Grammy Award-winner, also named Musical America’s “Instrumentalist of the Year,” is sought after throughout the world for concerto appearances with leading orchestras and conductors, and regularly gives recitals and appears with ensembles on the world’s great concert stages and at the most prestigious festivals.

Highlights of recent years include the acclaimed recording and performances of J.S. Bach’s complete sonatas and partitas for solo violin. In the coming seasons in addition to championing these solo works he will join his long time duo partner pianist, Akira Eguchi in recitals throughout North America, Europe, and Asia.

Appearances with orchestra regularly include the Berlin Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Israel Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, and San Francisco Symphony as well as multi-year residencies with the Orchestras of Montreal, Stuttgart and Singapore. With orchestra, Mr. Shaham continues his exploration of “Violin Concertos of the 1930s,” including the works of Barber, Bartok, Berg, Korngold, Prokofiev, among many others.

Mr. Shaham has more than two dozen concerto and solo CDs to his name, earning multiple Grammys, a Grand Prix du Disque, Diapason d’Or, and Gramophone Editor’s Choice. Many of these recordings appear on Canary Classics, the label he founded in 2004. His CDs include 1930s Violin Concertos, Virtuoso Violin Works, Elgar’s Violin Concerto, Hebrew Melodies, The Butterfly Lovers and many more. His most recent recording in the series 1930s Violin Concertos Vol. 2, including Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto and Bartok’s Violin Concerto No. 2, was nominated for a Grammy Award. He will release a new recording of Beethoven and Brahms Concertos with The Knights in 2020.

Mr. Shaham was born in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, in 1971. He moved with his parents to Israel, where he began violin studies with Samuel Bernstein of the Rubin Academy of Music at the age of 7, receiving annual scholarships from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation. In 1981, he made debuts with the Jerusalem Symphony and the Israel Philharmonic, and the following year, took the first prize in Israel’s Claremont Competition. He then became a scholarship student at Juilliard, and also studied at Columbia University.

Gil Shaham was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1990, and in 2008 he received the coveted Avery Fisher Prize. In 2012, he was named “Instrumentalist of the Year” by Musical America. He performs on an Antonio Stradivari violin, Cremona c1719, with the assistance of Rare Violins In Consortium Artists and Benefactors Collaborative, and lives in New York City with his wife, violinist Adele Anthony, and their three children.

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Anna Elashvili

Anna Elashvili, violin (Baltimore), hailed as "riveting" by the New York Times has appeared as a soloist, chamber musician and concertmaster around the world. She has collaborated with renowned artists such as Lynn Harrell, Dawn Upshaw, Daniel Hope and Maxim Vengerov. Anna is a violinist of Decoda, an Affiliate Ensemble of Carnegie Hall. She has also performed with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, East Coast Chamber Orchestra, NOVUS NY, and the Mark Morris Dance Orchestra.

For seven years, she served as the first violinist of the Bryant Park Quartet. Anna received her Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees from The Juilliard School and completed a 2-year fellowship at Carnegie’s program “Ensemble Connect”. Her international travels include concerts in England, Mexico, Germany, Canada, Israel, Iceland and Abu Dhabi among others. Ms. Elashvili is currently violin faculty at Vassar College, the Special Music School and Yellow Barn’s Young Artist Program. She has attended summer festivals including Yellow Barn, Perlman Music Program, Tanglewood and the Verbier Music Festival, where she served as concertmaster for several European tours.
Ms. Elashvili also has written arrangements for Decoda, the Bryant Park Quartet and other ensembles. She commissioned “Sonatas and Disasters” by Brad Balliett and premiered works by Valerie Coleman (commissioned for Decoda), Du Yun, Christopher Theofanidis, Julian Wachner, Nico Muhly, Richard Wilson and many others. She also enjoys collaborating with dance companies and has worked closely with the Lar Lubovitch and Mark Morris Dance Groups, Wendy Whelan and Dance Heginbotham.

Ms. Elashvili performs on a Sam Zygmuntowicz violin on a generous extended loan.

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Solomiya Ivakhiv

Violinist Solomiya Ivakhiv is praised for her “crystal clear and noble sound” (Culture and Life, Ukraine) and acclaimed for her “distinctive charm and subtle profundity” (Daily Freeman, New York). She is celebrated as a soloist, recitalist and chamber music collaborator, as a champion of new music and as a dedicated educator.

Solomiya Ivakhiv has performed in solo and chamber recitals at Carnegie Hall, Merkin Hall, CBC Glenn Gould Studio, Curtis Institute Field Concert Hall, Italian Academy in New York City, Pickman Hall in Cambridge, MA, San Jose Chamber Music Society, Old First Concerts in San Francisco, Astoria Music Festival (Portland), Tchaikovsky Hall in Kyiv, Concertgebouw Mirror Hall, and at UConn’s Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts.
She has performed concertos with the Istanbul State Symphony, Charleston Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, Lviv Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Hunan Symphony Orchestra in China, the AACC, and the Bach Festival Orchestra.

Featured appearances at prestigious national and international chamber music festivals include Tanglewood, The Embassy Series in Washington, Emerson Quartet Festival, Astoria Music Festival, San Jose Chamber Music Society, Newport Music Festival, Nevada Chamber Music Festival, Bach Festival of Philadelphia, The Banff Centre and Ottawa ChamberFest (Canada), Musique de Chambre à Giverny (France), Prussia Cove (England), Verbier Festival and Kammermusik Bodensee (Switzerland), AlpenKammerMusik (Austria), Modern Music “Contrasts” and KyivFest (Ukraine).

Ms. Ivakhiv is Artistic Director and frequent performer at the Institute (MATI) Concert Series in New York City, a position she has held since 2010. Highly sought after as a chamber musician, she frequently collaborates with Roberto Diaz, Steven Isserlis, Philip Setzer, Gilbert Kalish, Colin Carr, Marcy Rosen, Eugene Drucker and other renowned artists. Ms. Ivakhiv has premiered numerous new works for violin, including compositions by David Dzubay, Eli Marshall, David Ludwig, John B. Hedges, Bohdan Kryvopust, Yevhen Stankovych, Bruce Adolphe, and Oleksandr Shchetynsky, among others.

RECORDINGS AND BROADCASTS
In 2019 and 2020, Solomiya Ivakhiv releases three recordings featuring works for violin and orchestra, and violin and piano and orchestra, with the pianist Antonio Pompa-Baldi. The first of these albums, “Mendelssohn: Concerto for Violin, Piano, and Orchestra; Concerto for Violin and String Orchestra in D Minor” (Brilliant Classics 95733, released in fall, 2019) features two rarely heard early works by Mendelssohn with the Slovak National Symphony Orchestra, Theodore Kuchar, conductor.

“Concertos for Violin, Piano and Orchestra by Haydn and Hummel” (Centaur), released in spring 2020, pairs works by Franz Joseph Haydn (Concerto for Violin, Piano, and Strings in F major, Hob. XVIII: 6) and Johann Nepomuk Hummel (Concerto for Violin, Piano, and Orchestra in G major, Op. 17) also performed with pianist Antonio Pompa-Baldi and the Slovak National Symphony Orchestra and conductor Theodore Kuchar.

On “Poems and Rhapsodies” (Centaur, released in late 2020), Solomiya Ivakhiv is joined by the National Symphony of Ukraine, conducted by Volodymyr Sirenko. This collection of works includes American Rhapsody by Grammy-award winning composer Kenneth Fuchs, The Lark Ascending by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Poème symphonique by Ernest Chausson, La Muse et le poète by Camille Saint-Saëns, Carpathian Rhapsody by Myroslav Skoryk, and Poeme by Anatol Kos-Anatolsky.

Ms. Ivakhiv’s debut solo album, “Ukraine: Journey to Freedom – A Century of Classical Music for Violin and Piano”, with pianist Angelina Gadeliya (Labor Records, 2016) was featured in the Top 5 New Classical Releases on the iTunes billboard and was praised in Fanfare Magazine for its “superlative and consummate artistry.”

In addition to these studio recordings, Solomiya Ivakhiv’s performances are regularly broadcast on National Public Radio, Voice of America Radio, WRTI, KUNR, Ukrainian National Radio and Television, Netherland Public Radio and Chinese Hunan Television.
Solomiya Ivakhiv is the recipient of several international honors, including the Sergei Prokofiev and Yaroslav Kocian International Competitions, the Fritz Kreisler and Charles Miller Award from the Curtis Institute of Music, Award from the President of the Ukraine, 2019 Curtis Institute of Music Alumni Award and 2016 New Scholar Award from the University of Connecticut School of Fine Arts.

She is Assistant Professor of Violin and Viola and Head of Strings at the University of Connecticut and Professor of Violin at Longy School of Music of Bard College. A dedicated educator, Solomiya Ivakhiv has led master classes and coached chamber music at Yale, Columbia, Penn State, University of Hartford Hartt School of Music, Boston Conservatory, Curtis Summer Fest, University of Maryland, Bard College Prep, SUNY – Fredonia Universities, Oberlin, Guangzhou and Hunan Conservatories in China, and regularly collaborates with high schools in outreach programs throughout the United States. She is a member of the American String Teachers Association-Connecticut Chapter.

She graduated with honors from Curtis Institute of Music, where she was concertmaster of both the Curtis Symphony Orchestra and Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, and studied with Joseph Silverstein, Pamela Frank and the late Rafael Druian. Ms. Ivakhiv received her Master of Music degree from M. Lysenko Music Academy in Lviv, Ukraine, studying with Oresta Kohut, and holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Stony Brook University, where she studied with Pamela Frank and Philip Setzer.

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Jaram Kim

A laureate of the 2000 Yehudi Menuhin International Young Violinists Competition, Jaram Kim made her debut at the age of six in GwangJu Namdo Art Concerto Hall. The following year Jaram won the Gold Medal in the GwangJu HoNam Art Competition and at the age of ten, she performed Wieniawski Second Violin Concerto with the Seoul Chamber Orchestra. After receiving the Keum Ho scholarship, Jaram came to the United States to study at the Juilliard PreCollege in the studio of Hyo Kang. While attending Juilliard, she won the Juilliard Concerto Competition and performed with the Juilliard PreCollege Chamber Orchestra. She then went on to study in the Precollege program in the Manhattan School of Music under the tutelage of Grigory Kalinovsky, and made her New York concerto debut performing with the Jupiter Symphony under the baton of Maestro Jens Nygaard.

Jaram graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music with a Bachelor of Music degree in 2007 from the studio of Ida Kavafian; while at Crutis she performed under the baton of conductors including Christoph Eschenbach, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Otto­-Werner Mueller. Then in 2008, she began her graduate studies at the Yale School of Music under the direction of Ani Kavafian. In 2009, Jaram moved to Italy to continue her studies at the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole in Florence under the tutelage of M. Pavel Vernikov, and in 2010, Jaram joined the studio of M. Salvatore Accardo at the Accademia Walter Stauffer Fondazione in Cremona, Italy.

She has been an active performer while participating in numerous festivals in the United States of America, Canada and Europe, including Aspen Music Festival, Bowdoin International Music Festival and the Heifetz Institute. She was also one of the youngest participants of Pinchas Zukerman's National Arts Centre Orchestra Young Artists Program in Canada. Her festival engagements in Europe include the Kronberg Academy in Germany, Aurora Masterclasses in Sweden, International Summer Academy of Music and Performing Arts Vienna in Austria, Amiata Festival and Festival of Spoleto in Italy. Jaram also has an extensive teaching experience, a year of which she spent teaching the violinists of the Orchestra Giovanile Italiana. In 2011, Jaram accepted the position of Primo Violino of the orchestra La Verdi.

Besides the tours in Europe and Middle Asia with the La Verdi Orchestra, Jaram toured South America and India as a soloist with the Gracias Choir Orchestra under the sponsorship of the International Youth Foundation. She collaborated as a Guest Concertmaster with orchestras such as the Orquesta Clásica Santa Cecilia of Madrid under the direction of Maestro Kynan Johns.

For three consecutive years, she served as violin faculty member at the Music in the Mountains Conservatory in Durango, Colorado. Jaram was also invited to give masterclasses in La Coruña and as an associate faculty at the Indiana University Summer String Academy. She was an outside instructor at Columbia University and held a violin faculty position at Gracias Music and Mahanaim in Huntington, NY.

In 2019, she received the Doctoral of Music Arts degree from the Stony Brook University under the guidance of Hagai Shaham and Phil Setzer, where she also served as a Teaching Assistant. Currently, she holds a Violin Faculty position at the Bard College Conservatory of Music Pre­College in New York and is appointed Artistic Director of Manhattan in the Mountains Summer Music Festival.

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Kobi Malkin

Praised by the New York Times for his "aptly traversed palette of emotions, from languid introspection to fevered intensity with gorgeous tone and an edge-of-seat intensity”, Israeli violinist Kobi Malkin is making his mark as an exciting soloist and a perceptive chamber musician. He is the winner of the prestigious Ilona Kornhauser Prize and the Canetti International Violin Competition, and appears regularly in such venues as New York’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, Boston’s Jordan Hall, Vienna Konzerthaus, Mexico City’s Palacio de Bellas Artes, and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.
 
An avid chamber musician, Kobi has collaborated with Frans Helmerson, Kim Kashkashian, Mitsuko Uchida, and Peter Wiley, among others. He has performed at numerous festivals, such as Ravinia, Music@Menlo, Yellow Barn, the Perlman Music Program, and the Marlboro Music Festival.
 
Kobi is an alumnus of Ensemble Connect, a program of Carnegie Hall and The Juilliard School, which trains the next generation of performers to be artists and teachers who hold a deep commitment to the communities in which they live and work. He holds a Master of Music degree from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Sylvia Rosenberg and Donald Weilerstein, and a Bachelor of Music degree from the New England Conservatory, where he worked under the guidance of Miriam Fried.
 
Kobi plays on a 1701 Pietro Guarneri violin, generously on loan to him by Yehuda Zisapel.

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Yvonne Lam

Grammy-winning violinist Yvonne Lam enjoys challenging, delighting, and disarming audiences worldwide with her thoughtful musicianship, technical prowess, and fearless performance aesthetic.

As a co-artistic director of Eighth Blackbird for eight years, Yvonne performed around 50 concerts a year internationally, and has performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Melbourne Symphony, the Kansas City Symphony, the Cincinnati Symphony, the Lexington Philharmonic, the New World Symphony, and the Tasmanian Symphony. She has recorded three albums with Eighth Blackbird, including the Grammy-winning album Filament. In 2017, she co-founded the Blackbird Creative Lab, an intensive tuition-free training program for performers and composers in Ojai, California, as a way to inspire future generations of artists to share in Eighth Blackbird’s vision of championing new work and engaging audiences with innovative and dynamic performance. In addition to teaching and mentoring at the Blackbird Creative Lab, Yvonne has given lessons, masterclasses and lectures at universities throughout the US in addition to long-term residency activities at the Curtis Institute of Music, the University of Chicago, and the University of Richmond.

Prior to joining Eighth Blackbird, Yvonne served three seasons as Assistant Concertmaster of the Washington National Opera Orchestra and as Associate Concertmaster of the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra. She has also appeared as soloist with such renowned orchestras as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and the Auckland Philharmonia. Winner of the silver medal at the 2005 Michael Hill World Violin Competition, Yvonne has also garnered top prizes at the Liana Issakadze International Competition and the Holland-America Music Society Competition. She won the grand prize at the Pasadena Instrumental Competition and first prize at the Bronislaw Kaper Awards, the Arts and Talent Recognition Search festival (sponsored by the National Foundation for the Advancement in the Arts), and the Donna Reed Foundation Competition. Furthermore, she won prizes for the Best Performance of a Commissioned Work at the Irving M. Klein International String Competition and at the Michael Hill World Violin Competition.

Yvonne is deeply committed to and inspired by artistic collaboration. An avid chamber musician, she toured the east coast with Musicians From Marlboro, collaborated with her orchestra colleagues regularly, and toured with musica aperta in Puerto Rico. She has performed at Marlboro Music Festival, Music From Angel Fire, Ravinia Music Festival, Twickenham Fest, Taos Music Festival, and Yellow Barn Music Festival, and had the privilege of playing chamber music with such distinguished musicians as Jonathan Biss, Jeremy Denk, Gil Kalish, Paul Katz, Ida Kavafian, Ani Kavafian, Ida Levin, Anthony Marwood, and Roger Tapping.  Yvonne also enjoys an ongoing collaboration with the jazz bassist and composer Matt Ulery, performing with his trio in Chicago and New York, and appearing on two of his albums. Her most recent collaboration with the experimental performance group Every House Has A Door convened emerging visual artists, musicians, writers and directors in performance projects at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and the Chicago Art Institute.

A native of Los Angeles, Yvonne began her early studies in violin purely by mistake, thinking it was a guitar. Refusing to admit her mistake, she persisted, studying violin and piano at the Colburn School of Performing Arts. Her violin teachers in Los Angeles included Alexander Treger, Laura Schmieder, Alice Schoenfeld, and Linda Rose; her piano teachers were Dr. Louise Lepley and Yohsuke Suga.  She continued her studies for two years at the Peabody Institute, where she studied violin with Victor Danchenko and piano with Boris Slutsky and Brian Ganz. She earned her Bachelor of Music from the Curtis Institute of Music, and her Master of Music from the Juilliard School, where she studied with Robert Mann. She still has not learned to play the guitar, even though there are at least two in her basement.

Yvonne has lived in every major city on the east coast except Boston, and spent eight years in Chicago. She now lives with her husband and two sons in East Lansing, where she is an Assistant Professor of Violin Performance at Michigan State University.

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Melvin Chen

A native of Tennessee, Dr. Melvin Chen has received acclaim for solo and chamber performances throughout the United States, Canada, and Asia. Chen’s performances have been featured on radio and television stations around the world, including KBS television and radio in Korea, NHK television in Japan, and NPR in the United States.  

As a Professor in the Practice of Piano, Chen teaches a studio of graduate and undergraduate piano students. In addition, he is the Deputy Dean at the Yale School of Music, a role that involves overseeing academic affairs and general institutional management, and also serves as Director of the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival–Yale Summer School of Music, where he also performs. Previously, Chen was Associate Director and on the piano faculty at the Bard College Conservatory of Music and served as Artistic Director of the chamber music program at the Hotchkiss School Summer Portals.

Chen earned a doctorate in chemistry from Harvard University and holds a double master’s degree from The Juilliard School in piano and violin. He received his bachelor of science degree in chemistry and physics from Yale University, where he studied with Boris Berman, Paul Kantor, and Ida Kavafian. 

Chen’s notable solo recordings include Beethoven’s “Diabelli” Variations (Bridge Records), which the American Record Guide described as “a classic,” piano music by Joan Tower (Naxos Records), and sonatas and other pianos works by Shostakovich (Bridge Records), among others.

Performances
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival, Bard Music Festival, and Music from Angel Fire, among others

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Benjamin Hochman

Winner of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2011, Benjamin Hochman’s eloquent and virtuosic performances blend colorful artistry with poetic interpretation to the delight of audiences and critics alike. He performs in major cities around the world as an orchestral soloist, recitalist and chamber musician, working with an array of renowned musicians. Possessed of an intellectual and heartfelt musical inquisitiveness, his playing was described by the Vancouver Sun as “stylish and lucid, with patrician authority and touches of elegant wit.” Hochman frequently juxtaposes familiar and unfamiliar works in his concert programs, a talent that also extends to his thoughtful recorded repertoire, from Bach and Mozart to Kurtág and Peter Lieberson. The New York Times wrote of pianist Benjamin Hochman “classical music doesn’t get better than this.”

Hochman has performed at major venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, 92nd Street Y, Konzerthaus Wien, Berlin Konzerthaus, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Louvre in Paris, Liszt Academy in Budapest, Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Tivoli Theatre in Copenhagen, l'Auditori de Barcelona, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, and Kumho Art Hall in Seoul. Festival highlights include Marlboro, Ravinia, Santa Fe, Bard, Gilmore, Caramoor, Strings Music Festival, and Vail in North America, as well as European festivals including Lucerne, Spoleto, Verbier, Ruhr, Prussia Cove, and Israel Festival.

Hochman has performed as soloist with the New York, Los Angeles, Israel and Prague Philharmonics; the Chicago, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Cincinnati, Houston, Seattle, American, New Jersey, Portland, Vancouver, and Jerusalem Symphonies; the New York String Orchestra, IRIS Orchestra in Memphis, National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, Tel Aviv Soloists, and Istanbul State Orchestra. He has played under eminent conductors such as Gianandrea Noseda, David Robertson, John Storgårds, Pinchas Zukerman, Trevor Pinnock, Jun Märkl, Leon Botstein, Bramwell Tovey, Jaime Laredo, Joshua Weilerstein, Michael Stern, Jahja Ling, Kazuyoshi Akiyama, and Kaspar Zehnder.

In the 2019-2020 season, Mr. Hochman presents the complete Mozart Piano Sonatas at the Israel Conservatory in Tel Aviv and continues his traversal of the cycle at the Bard College Conservatory. He performs Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Bangor Symphony Orchestra conducted by Lucas Richman and Schumann’s Piano Concerto with the Greenwich Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Gilbert. He presents two programs on the subject of “Words and Music” at the 92nd Street Y in New York: a solo piano recital with works by Brahms, Adés, and Schumann, and a vocal program of Janáček Diary of One Who Vanished and Schoenberg Pierrot Lunaire. Recitals at Coastal Concerts in Delaware and the Performing Arts Center at Western Washington University, and chamber concerts at Boston Chamber Music Society, Schubert Club in Minnesota, Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival, and Linton Chamber Music in Cincinnati round out the season. He serves as assistant conductor to Rafael Payare and Bramwell Tovey at San Diego Symphony.

Hochman made his New York recital debut in 2006 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and went on to establish a vibrant musical presence in New York City through concerts with the New York Philharmonic and the American Symphony Orchestra and a succession of prominent recital and chamber performances at 92nd Street Y. He made his Carnegie Hall debut with the Israel Philharmonic and his debut with the Chicago Symphony in a Mozart Piano Concerto project with Pinchas Zukerman and Hubbard Street Dance. He has appeared with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl and been engaged for three subscription series with the Pittsburgh Symphony.

In recent years, Hochman’s admiration for the rich orchestral repertoire has led him to pursue conducting. He was appointed musical assistant to Louis Langrée as well as to guest conductors at the 2016 Mostly Mozart Festival, including Thierry Fischer, Paavo Järvi and Jeffrey Kahane. He has served as assistant conductor to Leon Botstein for American Symphony Orchestra’s concerts at Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall, and to Emmanuel Villaume at Juilliard. Recent and forthcoming conducting engagements include Santa Fe Pro Musica, Orlando Philharmonic, and The Orchestra Now. A graduate of the prestigious Juilliard conducting program, where he received the Bruno Walter Scholarship and Charles Schiff Award, Hochman trained under Alan Gilbert and James Ross. He has also worked in masterclasses with Fabio Luisi, David Zinman, Stefan Asbury, Johannes Schläfli, and James Gaffigan. In the summer of 2018, he participated in the Tanglewood Conducting Seminar. Hochman is founder and music director of the Roosevelt Island Symphony, an ensemble consisting of New York’s top orchestral and chamber musicians which presents its fourth season in 2019-2020.

In October 2019, Hochman’s debut album as conductor and concerto soloist will be released on Avie Records: Mozart Piano Concerti No. 17 and No. 24 with the English Chamber Orchestra. His 2015 album for Avie was titled Variations and included worksbyLuciano Berio, Oliver Knussen, Peter Lieberson, George Benjamin, and Brahms. His second solo album, Homage to Schubert, recorded for Avie Records in 2013, features Schubert’s Sonata in A Major, D. 664 and Sonata in D Major, D. 850, alongside contemporary tributes to Schubert, Jörg Widmann’s Idyll und Abgrund: Six Schubert Reminiscences and Kurtág’s Homage to Schubert. Hochman’s debut solo recording of works by Bach, Berg and Webern was released by Artek in 2009. He has also recorded chamber music by Lawrence Dillon with the Daedalus Quartet for Bridge Records and by Lisa Bielawa for Innova Recordings.

An enthusiastic collaborator, Hochman has worked with the Tokyo, Shanghai, Mendelssohn, Casals, Pražák, Daedalus, Escher, Jerusalem, and Borromeo Quartets; Zukerman ChamberPlayers; and members of the Guarneri, Juilliard, and Orion String Quartets, as well as pianists Jonathan Biss, Orion Weiss, and Shai Wosner, violinists Lisa Batishvili and Ani Kavafian, and cellists Miklós Perényi, Efe Baltacigil, and Ralph Kirshbaum.

A dedicated advocate for contemporary music, Hochman has worked closely with composers such as Krzysztof Penderecki, Brett Dean, Philippe Hurel, Joan Tower, William Bolcom, Yehudy Wyner, Tamar Muskal, David Ludwig, Menachem Wiesenberg, Jesse Brault, Gilad Cohen and Max Grafe.

Benjamin Hochman has been selected to participate in prestigious residencies around the world such as The Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two) at Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Isaac Stern's International Chamber Music Encounters in Israel, and Carnegie Hall's Professional Training Workshop. Hochman received the "Outstanding Pianist" citation at the Verbier Academy, the Festorazzi Award from the Curtis Institute of Music, second prize at the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition, and the "Partosh Prize" awarded by the Israeli Minister of Culture. His performances have been broadcast on National Public Radio's Young Artist Showcase and Performance Today, WNET’s Sunday Arts, WQXR, CBC (Canada), ABC (Australia), Radio France and Israel's Voice of Music radio station, as well as on the European television network Mezzo.

Born in Jerusalem, Hochman began his piano studies with Esther Narkiss at the Conservatory of the Rubin Academy, and Emanuel Krasovsky in Tel Aviv. He is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Claude Frank, and the Mannes College of Music, where he studied with Richard Goode. His studies were supported by the America-Israel Cultural Foundation. He serves on the piano faculty of Bard College Conservatory of Music. Hochman is a Steinway Artist and lives in New York City. His website is www.benjaminhochman.com.

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Jerome Lowenthal

American pianist Jerome Lowenthal has been a Juilliard faculty member since 1991. He has received prizes in international competitions in Brussels, Bolzano, and Darmstadt, and has appeared with major orchestras in the U.S., including Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, New York, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, National, Baltimore, Cleveland, St. Louis, and Minnesota. He has premiered solo music by Rochberg, Capanna, Reise, and Rorem’s Piano Concerto No. 3. He has played duo recitals with Denis Brott, Itzhak Perlman, Ronit Amir, and Ursula Oppens.

Lowenthal is a regular participant in chamber music festivals in Sitka, Alaska; Montreal; and Santa Barbara’s Music Academy of the West. He played the New York premiere of Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with New York Philharmonic. Lowenthal has made numerous recordings of solo concerto and chamber music repertoire.

Lowenthal studied with Olga Samaroff, William Kapell, and at Juilliard with Edward Steuermann. He also studied with Alfred Cortot at the École Normale de Musique on a Fulbright Grant.

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Ignat Solzhenitsyn

Recognized as one of today's most gifted artists, and enjoying an active career as both conductor and pianist, Ignat Solzhenitsyn's lyrical and poignant interpretations have won him critical acclaim throughout the world.
In 2019–20 Mr. Solzhenitsyn returns to the Bolshoi Theatre to lead La Clemenza di Tito and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, both of which he conducted at their production premieres. He also returns to the National Philharmonic of Russia, leads the London Chamber Orchestra in Hong Kong, appears at Music@Menlo, and gives solo recitals in Rome, Madrid, and St. Petersburg.
Principal Guest Conductor of the Moscow Symphony Orchestra and Conductor Laureate of the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Ignat Solzhenitsyn is much in demand as a guest conductor, having recently led the symphonies of Baltimore, Buffalo, Cincinnati, Dallas, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Nashville, Phoenix, Seattle, and Toronto, the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie, the Czech National Symphony, as well as many of the major orchestras in Russia including the Mariinsky Orchestra, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the Moscow Philharmonic, and the Moscow Symphony.  He has partnered with such world-renowned soloists as Richard Goode, Gary Graffman, Steven Isserlis, Gidon Kremer, Sylvia McNair, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Garrick Ohlsson, Mstislav Rostropovich, and Mitsuko Uchida.
In recent seasons, his extensive touring schedule in the United States and Europe has included concerto performances with numerous major orchestras, including those of Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Saint Louis, Los Angeles, Seattle, Baltimore, Washington, Montreal, Toronto, London, Paris, Israel, and Sydney, and collaborations with such distinguished conductors as Herbert Blomstedt, James Conlon, James DePreist, Charles Dutoit, Lawrence Foster, Valery Gergiev, Krzysztof Penderecki, André Previn, Mstislav Rostropovich, Gerard Schwarz, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Maxim Shostakovich, Yuri Temirkanov and David Zinman.  In addition to his recital appearances in the United States at New York’s 92nd Street Y, Philadelphia's Kimmel Center, St. Paul's Ordway Theatre, Ann Arbor’s Hill Auditorium, Salt Lake City’s Abravanel Hall, San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre, and many others from coast to coast, Mr. Solzhenitsyn has also given numerous recitals in Europe and the Far East in such major musical centers as London, Milan, Zurich, Moscow, Tokyo, and Sydney.
An avid chamber musician, Mr. Solzhenitsyn has collaborated with the Emerson, Borodin, Brentano, and St. Petersburg String Quartets, and in four-hand recital with Mitsuko Uchida.  He has frequently appeared at international festivals, including Salzburg, Evian, Ludwigsburg, Caramoor, Ojai, Marlboro, Nizhniy Novgorod and Moscow’s famed December Evenings.
A winner of the Avery Fisher Career Grant, Ignat Solzhenitsyn serves on the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music. He has been featured on many radio and television specials, including CBS Sunday Morning and ABC’s Nightline.  Born in Moscow, Mr. Solzhenitsyn resides in New York City.

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Shai Wosner

Pianist Shai Wosner has attracted international recognition for his exceptional artistry, musical integrity, and creative insight. His performances of a broad range of repertoire—from Beethoven and Schubert to Ligeti and the music of today—reflect a degree of virtuosity and intellectual curiosity that has made him a favorite among audiences and critics, who note his “keen musical mind and deep musical soul” (NPR’s All Things Considered).

In North America, Mr. Wosner has appeared with the major orchestras of Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Ottawa, San Francisco, and Toronto, among others. He has also performed with the ECCO, Orpheus, Los Angeles, and St. Paul chamber orchestras. Overseas, he has been heard with ensembles ranging from the BBC orchestras to the Vienna Philharmonic to the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra under Daniel Barenboim. Also a committed chamber musician, Mr. Wosner has collaborated with Martha Argerich, Martin Fröst, Lynn Harrell, Dietrich Henschel, Steven Isserlis, Ralph Kirshbaum, Jennifer Koh, Cho-Liang Lin, Christian Tetzlaff, and Pinchas Zukerman, among others.

Mr. Wosner records for Onyx Classics, and his recordings have been widely praised for their inventive pairings of classical and modern masters. Described as a “Schubertian of unfaltering authority and character” by Gramophone, he has recorded two all-Schubert albums for the label, and his catalog also includes Impromptu, featuring an eclectic mix of improvisationally inspired works by composers from Beethoven and Schubert to Gershwin and Ives; concertos and capriccios by Haydn and Ligeti with the Danish National Symphony conducted by Nicholas Collon; solo works by Brahms and Schoenberg; and works by Schubert paired with newly commissioned music by Missy Mazzoli. As a chamber musician, Mr. Wosner has recorded Beethoven’s complete sonatas and variations for cello and piano with Ralph Kirshbaum and—for Cedille Records—works by Bartók, Janáček, and Kurtág with his duo partner of many years, violinist Jennifer Koh.

Born in Israel, Mr. Wosner enjoyed a broad musical education from a very early age, studying piano with Opher Brayer and Emanuel Krasovsky, as well as composition, theory, and improvisation with André Hajdu. He later studied at The Juilliard School with Emanuel Ax. He is a recipient of Lincoln Center’s Martin E. Segal Award, an Avery Fisher Career Grant, and a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award, which he used to commission Michael Hersch’s concerto Along the Ravines for performance with the Seattle Symphony and Deutsche Radio Philharmonie. He is also a former BBC New Generation Artist and alumnus of Lincoln Center’s Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two). He resides in New York with his wife and two children.

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Renana Gutman

Praised by the New York Times for her “passionate and insightful” playing, Renana Gutman has performed across four continents as an orchestral soloist, recitalist and collaborative artist. She played at venues like The Louvre Museum, Grenoble Museum (France), Carnegie Recital Hall, People’s Symphony Concerts, Merkin Hall (New York), St. Petersburg’s Philharmonia (Russia), Stresa Music Festival (Italy), Ravinia Rising Stars (Chicago), Jordan Hall, Gardner Museum (Boston), Herbst Theatre (St. Francisco), Menuhin Hall (UK), UNISA (South Africa), Marlboro (VT), and National Gallery, Phillips Collection, and Freer Gallery (Washington DC). Her performances are heard frequently on WQXR Young Artists Showcase, NY, WFMT Dame Myra Hess, Chicago, and MPR in Performances Today, MN.

Renana was one of four young pianists selected by the renowned Leon Fleisher to participate in his workshop on Beethoven piano sonatas hosted by Carnegie Hall, where she presented performances of “Hammerklavier” and “Appassionata” to critical acclaim. Her recording of Chopin etudes op.25 will be released soon by “The Chopin Project."

A top prize winner at Los Angeles Liszt competition, International Keyboard Festival in New York, and Tel-Hai International Master Classes, she performed concerti such as Brahms 2nd, Rachmaninoff-Paganini Variations, and Beethoven’s “Emperor” with the Jerusalem Symphony, Haifa Symphony, Belgian “I Fiamminghi”, and Mannes College Orchestra. Her festival appearances included Marlboro and Ravinia, where she collaborated with prominent musicians like pianist Richard Goode, clarinetist Anthony McGill and members of the Guarneri string quartet, to name a few.

High in demand as a chamber musician, Renana toured with “Musicians from Marlboro”, and served as the collaborative pianist of Steans Institute at Ravinia Festival from 2012-2018, where she performed chamber music and lieder extensively. In last seasons, she performed chamber music with violist Kim Kashkashian, violinist Miriam Fried, and clarinetist Charles Neidich. She tours regularly with violinist Alexi Kenney, winner of Avery Fisher Grant.

Renana premiered newly commissioned music by Paul Schoenfield, Tamar Muskal, Judith Zaimont, and other living composers. As a member of “Echoes of Hope” project, she is also dedicated to performing obscure pieces by Jewish composers who perished in the Holocaust; Erwin Schulhoff, Viktor Ullmann, and others. She was a founder member of the award-winning piano trio “terzetto”. The trio performed in festivals and concerts across The United States.

Renana joined the piano faculty of Boston’s Longy School of Music of Bard College in the fall of 2019. She had previously been on the piano faculty of the Yehudi Menuhin Music School in the UK.

A native of Israel, Renana started playing at the age of six, and soon after, garnered multiple awards and honors. She received scholarships from the America Israel Cultural Foundation, and the Jewish Foundation for the Education of Women. She completed her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees at Mannes College of Music, NY, where she studied with Richard Goode. In Israel, her teachers were pianists Natasha Tadson, Viktor Derevianko, and the Israeli composer Arie Shapira.

Renana became an American citizen in 2015 and makes her home in NYC. She also pursues her passion for Argentinian Tango, languages, and poetry.

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Ieva Jokubaviciute

Lithuanian pianist Ieva Jokubaviciute’s powerfully and intricately crafted performances have earned her critical acclaim throughout North America and Europe. Her ability to communicate the essential substance of a work has led critics to describe her as possessing ‘razor-sharp intelligence and wit' and ‘subtle, complex, almost impossibly detailed and riveting in every way’ (The Washington Post) and as ‘an artist of commanding technique, refined temperament and persuasive insight.’(The New York Times). In 2006, she was honored as a recipient of a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship.
 
Labor Records released Ieva’s debut recording in 2010 to critical international acclaim, which resulted in recitals in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Baltimore, DC, Vilnius, and Toulouse.   She made her orchestral debuts with the Chicago Symphony; in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; with the American Youth Philharmonic in 2016, and in February 2017, Ieva was the soloist with the Orquesta Filarmónica de Montevideo in Uruguay.  Her piano trio—Trio Cavatina—won the 2009 Naumburg International Chamber Music Competition.  Ieva’s latest recording:  Returning Paths:  solo piano works by Janacek and Suk was also released to critical acclaim in 2014. 
 
In the fall of 2016, Ieva began a collaboration with the violinist Midori, with recitals in Canada, at the Cartagena International Music Festival in Colombia, and in Germany and Austria.  Since, they have given recitals in Japan, Germany, Austria, Poland, Peru, Colombia, Mexico, India, and Sri Lanka.  .   
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Jokubaviciute’s latest piano solo recording Northscapes will be released in 2021.  This recording project weaves works, written within the last decade by composers from the Nordic and Baltic countries of Europe, into a tapestry of soundscapes that echo the reverberations between landscape, sound, and the imagination.  This recording will include works by:  Kaja Saariaho, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Raminta Šerkšnyte, Lasse Thoresen, Bent Sorensen, and Pēteris Vasks. 
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A much sought after chamber musician and collaborator, Ieva regularly tours and appears at international music festivals including: Marlboro; Ravinia; Bard; Caramoor; Chesapeake Chamber Music; Prussia Cove in Cornwall, England; and Festival de la musique de chambre at La Lointaine in France. She has participated in the Schleswig-Holstein Festival in Lubeck, Germany; the Katrina Chamber Music Festival, Aland Islands, Finland; the Oulunsalo Chamber Music Festival in Oulunsalo, Finland; the Joaquin Turina Chamber Music Festival in Seville, Spain; and Music in the Vineyards in Napa Valley, CA; the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival in Burlington, VT; Salt Bay Chamber Music Festival in Maine, and the Four Seasons Chamber Music Festival at East Carolina University.
 
Earning degrees from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and from Mannes College of Music in New York City, her principal teachers have been Seymour Lipkin and Richard Goode.  Currently, Ieva is Associate Professor of the Practice of Piano at Duke University in Durham, NC having previously been on the faculty at Shenandoah Conservatory in Winchester, VA. Ieva is also on the faculty at the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music School and Festival in Blue Hill, ME and has established herself as a mentoring artist at the Marlboro Music Festival in Marlboro, VT.

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Sachiko Kato

Sachiko Kato is a Japanese-born, Los Angeles-raised, and Juilliard-trained pianist. Ms. Kato has performed extensively as a recitalist, soloist, and chamber musician throughout North and South America and Japan since her debut recital at Carnegie Weill Hall in 1994.

Her pianism has been feature-broadcasted by WNYC, “New Sounds” program, WQXR, KMZT, and SKCR FM, and as received critical acclaim: : “the velvet smoothness and silken beauty… an extremely imaginative player… she plays with such a sense of effortlessness and ease” (Fanfare Jan.-Feb. 2013); “a lovely, delicate touch… interpretive clarity… impressively crisp fingerwork and consistent energy.” (New York Concert Review).

Featured in the Juilliard centenary publication, “Dance Drama Music: 100 Years of the Juilliard School,” as one of the 100 outstanding alumni, Ms. Kato is known for her beautiful sonorous sound and a wide-ranging repertoire.

In addition, she has been active in the new music scene as the founder and artistic director of Weaving Japanese Sounds contemporary music concert project founded in 2004 to promote cultural exchanges through music. Ms. Kato has recorded the Goldberg Variations on the Centaur Records label in 2012. Jerry Dubins of Fanfare claims: “Sachiko Kato’s performance is truly special” and “… everyone who embraces Bach’s Goldberg Variations on piano, this deserves to be heard and is urgently recommended.”  In 2019, she released a CD of music by Debussy and Ravel, and also published a book, "The Sachiko Piano Method: How to Find the Music Within You".

She has recently been chosen to be a part of New York’s premier classical music radio station WQXR’s Chopin Marathon event and her live performance was broadcasted live globally through streamlining.

Ms. Kato currently resides in NYC.

For more information, please visit www.sachikokato.com.

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Janara Khassenova

Originally from Kazakhstan, pianist Janara Khassenova is a graduate of the Moscow State Conservatory where she completed undergraduate and postgraduate studies. While in United States, she completed an Artist Diploma Program in Chamber Music from the Longy School of Music. She has performed as a soloist and with chamber ensembles and orchestras in countries of the former Soviet Union, Italy, Greece as well as United States.

Janara collaborates frequently with various musicians in a variety of projects and regularly performs in a piano four­hand duo with pianist Ellina Blinder.
In addition to the Bard Preparatory Division, Janara currently teaches piano at her studio in Newton, MA and in New York City where she resides.

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Luba Poliak

Born in Siberia, Luba Poliak made her debut playing Mozart concerto with the Novosibirsk Philharmonic Orchestra at the age of eleven. In 1990, she immigrated to Israel, where she continued her studies and graduated magna cum laude from the Rubin Academy in Tel Aviv. She studied in Brussels and earned her master’s degree with honors at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. Ms. Poliak completed her doctorate in 2008 at Stony Brook University, where she worked and coached with Gilbert Kalish, Pamela Frank, Ida Kavafian, Colin Carr and members of The Emerson String Quartet. After winning the Stony Brook Concerto Competition in 2004, Ms. Poliak performed with the Stony Brook Symphony, conducted by David Stern. The same year her performances at the Sydney competition were aired on ABC Classic FM in Australia.

Luba Poliak has been performing solo and chamber music recitals across North America, Europe, Asia and Australia at the venues such as Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles, Belgium; Jordan Hall, Boston; Dame Myra Hess Concert Memorial Series, Chicago, IL; 92nd Street Y and Harvard Club, New York City; Bulgarian Embassy, Washington D.C.; Dudley Hall, Houston; and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Ms. Poliak has received numerous grants from the America Israel Cultural Foundation and was a fellow at such music festivals as Aspen, Colorado, Verbier, Switzerland, and the exclusive “German for Singers and Vocal Coaches” program at Middlebury College, Vermont.

Dedicated to music education of the younger generation, Ms. Poliak was invited to give master classes and lecture – recitals at Fort Hays State University in Kansas, University of Houston and Lehman College in New York. During the fall 2010, and spring 2013 semesters, Ms. Poliak served as a full time visiting piano faculty at the Lawrence University in Wisconsin. She was invited again for an intensive weekend of solo recital, technique workshop and master class in the fall of 2013. Luba Poliak teaches and performs regularly at such festivals as Texas Music Festival at the University of Houston, Heifetz Music Festival, Bowdoin Festival and Bard College Piano Camp. In addition to being on the faculty of the Bard Conservatory Preparatory division Ms. Poliak is also a piano and chamber music faculty member at the 92nd Street Y school of music in New York.

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Victoria Schwartzman

Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, Victoria Schwartzman (formerly Mazin) performs regularly as a soloist and chamber musician. Victoria has appeared at the Music Mountain Festival with the St. Petersburg String Quartet, in the New York Philharmonic Ensembles series at Merkin Hall, at Summit Music Festival with Dmitri Berlinsky, at Bargemusic, in the Gessner-Schocken concert series in Cambridge, WMP Concert Hall, and the Nicolas Roerich Museum concert series in New York City. As a member of the Yanvar Trio, she was a prizewinner in the Val-Tidone Chamber Music Competition and a finalist in the Zinotti International Chamber Music competition, both in Italy.

After graduating from Jerusalem Conservatory, Victoria continued her education at the Longy School of Music and New England Conservatory. While pursuing various degrees in solo and chamber music performance, she was selected to perform in masterclasses given by Dmitri Bashkirov, Menahem Pressler, and Richard Goode, among others. Her principal teachers include Irina Kivaiko, Issak Kossov, Victor Rosenbaum, Sally Pinkas, Eda Shlyam, and Eteri Andjaparidze.
As soloist with orchestra, Victoria has performed with the Jerusalem Chamber Orchestra, the Longy School of Music Chamber Orchestra, and the Riverside Orchestra. She has performed at the Quartet Program in Pennsylvania, and participated in the Tel-Hai International Piano Festival in Israel and the Lyrica Chamber Music Festival in New Jersey. Also active in the field of opera and art song, Victoria was vocal coach and accompanist at Boston Lyric Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, Bard Music Festival, the Brevard Music Center, the Westchester Summer Vocal Institute, and the American Institute of Musical Studies Festival in Graz, Austria.

Victoria is as committed to performance as she is to education. She recently gave a master class in Russian vocal repertoire at Queens College, NY. She is on the coaching faculty in the Vocal Department at Montclair State University and Long Island University Post. Victoria is also the co-founder of the Newburgh Music Festival, a week long immersive classical music program devoted to both solo performance and chamber music, located on the shore of the Hudson river, in Newburgh, NY.

Victoria is currently on the piano faculty at Bard Conservatory of Music Preparatory Division.

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Susanne Son

Canadian born pianist, Susanne Son made her debut with the Toronto Symphony at the age of 12. Since then, she has appeared as soloist with several orchestras including the Philadelphia and Minnesota Orchestras. In North America, she has performed at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Hall, Jordan Hall in Boston, Academy of Music, Kimmel Center, Kravis Center, Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis, and Roy Thomson Hall. She has also performed throughout Canada and Japan.

Festival appearances include the Tanglewood Music Center, Music Academy of the West, Kneisel Hall Summer Chamber Music Festival, and Banff Centre School of Fine Arts.

A two-time recipient of a Canada Council Grant, she is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and The Juilliard School. Ms. Son is a top-prize winner of the Canadian Music Competition and has received the Chalmers Award from the Ontario Arts Council.

An avid chamber musician, Ms. Son has performed with members of the Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, and in the Minnesota Orchestra's Sommerfest series.

Her principal teachers include Seymour Lipkin, Stephanie Brown, Paul Shaw, James Anagnoson, and Jerome Lowenthal. In masterclasses, she has worked with Leon Fleisher, Peter Serkin, Karl Ulrich Schnabel, Emanuel Ax, Jane Coop, Eugene List, and Misha Dichter.

Ms. Son is currently on the piano faculty and is Co-Director of the Preparatory Division at Bard Conservatory of Music.